


A Thin Line

by villanais



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 07:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3928663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villanais/pseuds/villanais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four messages he leaves for her. One she leaves him. And the one where they actually talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

One

The first twenty seconds is basically silence.  Just him attempting to steady his breathing.  Each inhale and exhale producing faint static on her end. It’s labored, but he doesn't sound like he’s dying at least.

“Hi,” he says, already sounding regretful. Like an apology. There’s a tightness in his voice. The sharp intake of breath accompanied by the soft rustling of fabric with each step he takes gives away the pain he’s in.  

She wonders if he’s hearing any old ships right then. How many bones of his have been chipped, fractured, broken, and bruised? How much blood has he left behind? How strong of a trail is he leaving and is anyone following him? The sound of sirens wane in and out of focus. He’s not home yet. He called as soon as he was safe. Maybe that counts for something.

“I just wanted to let you know that I made it out. I—I’m sorry I left you hanging. I just didn't know which way things were gonna go—”

He sounds like he’s not sure what he’s apologizing for. Leaving her the way he did at his apartment or abandoning her on the other end when she thought he was about to die. She’s not sure what she would have said—if she would have had anything to say—had he stayed on the phone. He didn't give her a chance.

He gives a tired laugh. The exhaustion in its acrid melody is palpable.

“God—you were smart Claire. Everything’s gone to complete _shit_.”

If she had answered, she would've made a smart quip about how everything was _always_ shit in Hell’s Kitchen—how for a man so inordinately burdened by his faith, he sure did take the lord’s name in vain a hell of a lot.    

“I don’t know where you are…right now.”

He gives another laugh that comes out as mostly just air through his nose. There’s a wet clicking sound that she guesses must be him licking his lips.

 “—But I know it’s not my place.”

She realizes that she left her ring on his bathroom sink. The one that had dried blood stuck in its engravings left over from the first time she kept him from dying. She won’t go back to get it.

“Wherever you are—be safe.”

_Be safe_.

He says it with a question in his voice. Like it wasn't really what he wanted to say, but it will have to do. He starts to say more but it doesn't matter.

Like everything else between them that night—he gets cut off.


	2. Chapter 2

Two

She almost answered this time. Almost.

He was a bastard and he didn't deserve her forgiveness. Not yet. But the last time she had seen him had been the worst. He never regained consciousness after Foggy had called, and she left before she could see him wake up.

She could have stayed, technically. She ended up calling in sick anyway once she got home. Because despite putting her best efforts into an impromptu sink shower and the change of clothes she stole from his dresser—she could still feel the warmth of his blood between her fingers, smell the copper in her hair, taste the sweat on her lips left from when she kissed him on the forehead as a goodbye—as a personal penance.

Foggy was scared shitless. She was too, if she were honest. But she did what she always did and put on a well-practiced visage of stone—wasting no time instructing Foggy where to move him, what gauze to hold where, to not dry heave while she was applying a tourniquet to his best friend for-the-love-of-Christ.   

She didn't cry until the subway ride home—pathetically attempting to smother sobs in her sleeve while her shoulders shook and young children observed her with alarmed eyes from behind their mother’s thigh.

He was a bastard. So she didn't answer.

(But she almost did.)

She began to go to delete the message when she realized the number was wrong. Her thumb hovered over the listen button while she debated whether she actually cared enough.  

“He’s alive,” Foggy exhales. “Son of a bitch.”

She stifles a soft laugh. Matt didn't deserve him.

“He came to maybe about an hour after you left,” he pauses. “Well—sort of? He’s been in and out of it since then. I don’t think he’s dying though. So maybe I will actually get to commit homicide tonight.”

He sounds tired—so, so tired. The exhaustion has settled itself deep into her bones. It’s similar to the kind she feels after a week with more than one double shift. It’s not as bad as that, but it’s also worse. She settles the phone in the crook of her neck and pops her knuckles. The crack of bones sounds similar to some the injuries he’s come to her with.

The low vibration of Foggy’s breath against the receiver turns hesitant, like he’s contemplating his next words. “I don’t know if this will help…or hurt anything—“

She can tell he’s trying to figure out the gentlest way to deliver a hard blow.

“He’s asked for you like—three times.”

She’s not sure how that makes her feel either. She knows that it makes her throat feel thick, and her heart heavy. She knows it sucks.

“I probably would've pissed my pants if you hadn't come—so thanks. Matt’s always had a knack for attracting beautiful girls, but I don’t think he’s ever met one that was kind enough to run across the city to preform minor surgery at 3 am—while also having the balls to literally pick his small intestines off the floor and shove em’ back in.”

His humor helps, but it’s not enough to lift the heavy weight that’s been seizing her lungs and breaking her heart ever since he walked out on her that night. Foggy would have to carry that burden around with him too now—the knowledge that someone you loved might actually be what you most despise. That they were willing to become hell itself so that they may look at you in heaven from afar—expecting you to smile as you watch them burn.

Matt’s penance was fighting the devil inside him. Hers was pretending that he wasn't letting himself lose.


	3. Chapter 3

Three

The first message he ever left was remarkably painless—happy even. It’s the only one she hasn't deleted. The only one he left before the Russians took her, before he kissed her, before half of Hell’s Kitchen was reduced to broken glass and ashes. She remembers her heart in her throat when she saw the missed call. It was her day off and she had already fallen asleep by 8:00 pm—no doubt a result of him interfering with her already fucked sleeping schedule. She woke up six hours later feeling more tired and pissed off. That all turned into panic once she saw that he had left the message two hours ago and still hadn't shown at her fire escape yet.

“I’m not dying,” he immediately assures, chuckling, like he knew she’d be up in arms already. “A little banged up, but not dying. Which is an improvement considering the state I normally scale your building in.”

What an ass, she thinks.  She didn't even know the guy’s name yet and he was already going to give her an aneurysm.  

“I did, however, completely tear open those stitches on my back so…I’m sorry?”

_What an ass._ He sounds sincere enough, but she can still hear his sheepish smile. The one that makes his soft features look even younger. She knows he wears the mask for anonymity’s sake, but she’s also glad—in a way—that he put it back on before beating that phony detective on her roof. The mask concealed his identity, but it also hid the rage and sadism that simmered beneath his silent eyes. She’s not sure his face would look so sweet if she had seen that part of him. 

“I somehow managed to end up all the way near Port Morris?” he says in disbelief. “At least from what I've heard—so I might be a while.” She doesn't know how a blind man manages to cover that much ground tailing Russian mobsters all night, but more power to him.

“Hopefully that will give you enough time to excuse any inconvenient _guests_ ,” he teases with a breathy laugh.  She knows he knew that she was joking when she said that, but the slight jealousy in his voice, albeit for show, still makes her grin like an idiot.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says gently, in a way that makes her skin feel warm and her toes curl.

In retrospect, she can hear in his voice that he was already falling for her. At that point, she probably was too. She knows that he had to have heard her heart stutter because of him at least a few times by then. She was never embarrassed by it. The very nature of their relationship allowed them to bare the deepest parts of their souls while hiding the mundane details they advertised to the rest of the world as their most quintessential qualities.

It was a novel feeling—to know that you knew a person as something completely different from how everyone else perceived them. In a way it was sad. The person she knew best was a complete stranger.

Okay, that was wrong. She knew the broad strokes of his soul, not the fine details. And maybe that was better than most people but it still wasn't enough. Not enough to know that he was willingly conducting a suicide mission—that he valued the preservation of his city more than the sanctity of his soul. She wouldn't learn that until later.  

Maybe the message wasn't as happy as she thought it was. She still listened to it before boarding her plane. She knew that he would call again, and she knew that she wouldn't answer. He had to know that too by now. He would still leave a message.

She would let his words wound her then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about the geography of Manhattan. I apologize if I have represented the efficiency of Matt Murdock's parkour skills inaccurately.


End file.
